


Listen

by especiallythezefronposter



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hospitals, M/M, Poetry, Science Bros Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 16:36:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4107676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/especiallythezefronposter/pseuds/especiallythezefronposter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'I want to read you a poem,' Bruce says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Listen

**Author's Note:**

> For the Science Bros Week prompt 'Listen'.

'I want to read you a poem,' Bruce says.

They're in the hospital, Tony and him, pretending to watch some movie that's playing on the old TV in the top corner of the room, so quietly that they can't really be paying attention. Instead they're lost in their own minds, thinking about things they can shut out as long as they're in the lab, forget about as long as they're asleep or, in Tony's case, drunk. This is the first time in weeks that they've allowed themselves to unwind like this and Bruce feels honoured that Tony is willing to do it while he's with him.

Tony laughs, but mutes the TV completely from under his pile of blankets in the hospital bed and doesn't say anything. It's a good kind of laugh, uncensored and happy and Bruce wonders why it surprises him so much.

He shifts in the uncomfortable chair beside Tony's bed, his back aching from how long he's been sitting there. 'I was in Brussels for a conference, once, when I was only a little over twenty. There was a woman there who... She was really beautiful, like... in a happy way and she started talking to me and she was the only person in the whole room who didn't make me feel inadequate. She invited me to her apartment and she told me I reminded her of a poem. It was a poem by a Belgian writer, Herman De Coninck.' The way Hilde had said this name, it had sounded like music, but in Bruce's mouth the consonants are clumsy, the vowels too round. 'It was never translated, so she translated it for me. I still have the paper she wrote it on somewhere, kept it even on the run.' 

He's quiet for a moment, lost in memories of places and guns and new places and the same old guns. 

'The first time I read that poem, I wanted to learn Dutch just so that I could understand it's full meaning, even the parts that were lost in translation.'

'Why didn't you?' Tony's voice is quieter than it usually is. He's looking at the moving images on the TV screen, hands still.

Bruce says, 'Dutch is fucking difficult.' and Tony laughs again. There's this trembling thing inside Bruce that would say anything to make Tony laugh like that again.

Tony's blankets shift when he turns to face Bruce. He looks amused, but also focused, like he's trying really hard to do this right. 'How does it go?'

Bruce's eyes find Tony's, but before he speaks, he looks away again. It would be too intimate if he were looking into Tony's eyes, they would cross the line into a territory of closeness Tony isn't comfortable with and he'd go back to being cynical, to trying not to listen. 

 

' _My friend imitates almost everything._  
_Just yesterday he practiced the watering_  
_of a withered little bureaucrat:_  
_It sounded like his whole life,_  
_a quiet sizzle._ '

 

He had heard of Tony Stark when they were both still teenagers. He had been living with his aunt and uncle for five years when his aunt showed him an article about Tony, about how much of a genius he was, putting engines together at five and graduating from high school only ten years later. Bruce followed his career with only some professional interest, but then Hilde read him that poem, sitting naked at her desk, and he thought, _He will understand_. From then on he had paid more attention when Tony was in the papers. It wasn't a crush, really, he just wanted to be close to him, to read him that poem and see how he'd react.

 

' _And today he's eating,_  
_lights a cigar, orders two red wine_  
_and declares: Nixon's remorse._ '

 

The first time he met Tony, they were both at a conference in Cape Town. Bruce was twenty-five, which meant that Tony was twenty-three. Tony was drunk, had been called out on the crimes of his company earlier in the evening and laughed it away. Bruce had heard people talk about it in the lobby of the hotel he was staying at, knew he would see it on the cover of some crappy newspaper in the morning.

He only realised how long he'd been staring at Tony when Tony walked right up to him and offered to buy him a drink.

'I don't drink.'

'Don't you fuck men, either? Because that would be inconvenient.'

'Are you... making a pass at me?'

'Yes. You looked smarter from the other end of the bar.'

'Won't your reputation be ruined if the media finds out you're...' Bruce wasn't comfortable with saying it out loud, even the euphemisms.

'Into men? They already know that, but they also know they can't write me out of the history books like they did with Alan Turing, so they're just ignoring it.' Bruce could smell the alcohol on Tony's breath, but it was absent from his voice.

Bruce didn't say anything. He didn't know who Alan Turing was.

'So will you fuck me?', Tony asked, drawing out the first word. 'I'm having a bit of a shitty day,' he added.

'I'd rather not,' Bruce said, because he had no idea what else to say. _Listen to this poem I love, it won't make you feel better_.

'I could just give you a blowjob. I'm good at blowjobs.'

'I don't want that, either.' But Tony was looking at him like this was important, so Bruce added. 'We could just... talk, though. Or say nothing at all. Or...' He scratched his neck. 'I'll just go, okay. There are hotter, um, hotter guys in here.'

'No, no. We can talk. I love talking.' 

He grabbed Bruce's sleeve and tugged him along. 'My room is on the fifth floor.'

Bruce didn't read him the poem, but he heard that laugh for the first time, the happy one, and that's better than poetry.

 

' _And suddenly he runs away and hides_  
_behind a corner. What are you doing,_  
_I ask. I am happiness, he calls,_  
_you'll never find me._ '

 

They met on conferences sometimes, but only talked about work, didn't mention the time they laid on Tony's king-sized bed in a hotel in Cape Town and joked about the things that scared them like they were on top of the world, eating jelly beans and drinking cokes.

He only really thought of that night again years later, with guns pointed at his head, Tony's same plastered all over them. They didn't leave a scratch on Hulk, not until five months later, when Tony had gotten the chance to make some adjustments.

Bruce wondered if Tony knew who he was trying to kill. He hoped he'd never find out.

 

' _And at night the atmosphere changes,_  
_every time. Fields rest like wide beds_  
_and the mist leaves blankets everywhere._ ' 

 

When they meet again they're older. Bruce can tell from the way Tony looks at him that Tony knew, maybe not from the beginning, but at some point he must have found out whose heart beat in time with Hulk's. The thing is that Bruce is too tired to hate him for it. He has been angry for so long, and now he just wants to rest, the way Tony wanted to rest all those years ago, wanted to pretend for a moment that the world wasn't filled with evil, that he wasn't contributing to that evil.

So after Loki is back in Asgard and Tony has invited Bruce to come live with him in the Malibu mansion until Stark Tower is repaired, they lie down in one of Tony's king sized beds and laugh at the world and all its horrors.

 

' _Sleeping is something I can only_  
_imitate these days, he says._  
_Love, too, I say. We are quiet._ ' 

 

Bruce is working in a refugee camp when he gets the call. It's Tony, voice scratchy and words forced. He's only saying them because Steve or Natasha is glaring at him from somewhere, Bruce can tell by now, but that doesn't make them any less scary.

'I'm in the hospital,' he says. 'Presbyterian.' There's a pause and a sigh. 'I'd like if you came over. I can arrange a jet.'

'Okay,' Bruce says. He is angry, makes sure Tony can hear. 'What are you in the hospital for?'

'I didn't eat, sleep and drink that much the last few days. My body doesn't like that, apparently.'

'How much did your body not like it?'

He can almost see Tony's wince. 'I'm in ICU.'

'Shit.'

'The jet will be there in ten hours. Just tell the hospital staff you're Dr. Banner. I've convinced them to let you stay past visiting hours.'

 

' _And later he mimics the sound_  
_Of a car in which to_  
_drive to the moon._ ' 

 

When Bruce looks at Tony, Tony is looking away. 'I liked that,' he says. 'But it's sad.'

'I know,' Bruce says.

Then, after what seems like ages, Tony says, 'Kiss me.'

Bruce does.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I translated a poem by a very famous Belgian author, which is probably like sacrilege over here, but I love this poem so much and I wanted to share it. Keep in mind that it was translated by me and that English isn't my first language and that translating poems in really fucking hard. The poem is so much better in Dutch. It's from De Lenige Liefde by Herman de Coninck.


End file.
